Foundations of Esotericism

Schmidt Number: S-1130

On-line since: 31st March, 2004

LECTURE X

Berlin, 5th October 1905

If we consider man's being in its entirety we have to begin with the
physical body, then the etheric, then the astral body. The physical
body of man can be seen by everyone. The etheric body becomes visible
when the physical body is suggested away by a strong act of will. Then
the space of the physical body remains filled with the etheric body.
The occultist considers the etheric as actually being the lowest body.
It is the body according to which the physical body is formed. Taking
the descending line, the form of the etheric body is the reverse of
the physical. It is only in the ascending line that they are
identical. A woman has a masculine etheric body and a man a feminine
etheric body.

Around the etheric body appears the astral body. It is the outer form
for the entire content of the soul; for passions, emotions, impulses,
desires, joy, unhappiness, enthusiasm and so on. It manifests itself
in forms of every description. The surrounding part shows cloud
formations; it radiates the most varied colours. Frequently somewhat
tattered formations are attached to it. The forms and colours are
different and changing. Green shows sympathy and compassion for one's
fellow men. The lower levels of the population show much red in the
astral body, brownish red, brick red, blood red. Especially with
droshky-drivers one can see such a red, indicative of the lower
passions.

With every human being all the fluctuations of the astral body are
enclosed in an egg-shaped sheath. This has an underlying blue colour
and shows, as an important factor, a dark violet spot in the middle of
the brain. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky calls this egg-shaped sheath the
auric egg. In the case of little children the auric egg is
predominant; in their case many bright, luminous clouds of colour
appear within it. In the lower parts however little children also have
dark clouds, indicating lower impulses. This is the inherited Karma
that they have in common with their ancestors  the sins of the
fathers. These sins of the fathers are inherited down to the seventh
generation. People's characteristics can be traced back as far as the
seventh generation of forefathers. After the seventh generation
heredity dies out. One reckons three generations to a century. The man
of today therefore still shows certain good or bad qualities coming
from what was good or bad in his ancestors of the 17th century. Thus
one can look backwards on one's forefathers as far as two hundred
years or rather more.

To see how the auric egg has been formed we must consider the
development of a cosmic body. The condition of the Earth lying nearest
to our present studies is characterised as the physical condition. In
Theosophical literature a condition of form is called a Globe and one
therefore speaks of the physical Globe. As physical Globe the Earth is
the fourth Globe in a development of seven states of being. Three
other conditions preceded the physical Globe and a further three are
still to follow. Before the Earth became physical it was astral.
Everything living upon Earth was at that time present only in the
astral. When man has gone through the Sixth and Seventh Root-Races
(epochs) he will have become so spiritualised that he will again have
an astral form. This future astral condition of form however will
contain all the fruits of evolution.

Seven conditions of form together make up a Round. At the present time
the Earth is going through its fourth Round and this is the mineral.
During this time it is the task of mankind to work upon the mineral
kingdom. A man is already working on the mineral kingdom when he takes
a flint and hammers it into a wedge-shaped tool with which he makes
other objects, when he transports rocks and builds pyramids out of the
stones, when he makes tools out of metals, when he conducts electric
current in a network over the earth; in all this man is working upon
the mineral kingdom. Thus man puts into service the whole mineral
kingdom. He makes the Earth into something entirely of his own
devising. When the painter turns his mind to a combination of colours
he is also working upon the mineral kingdom. We are now in the midst
of this activity, and in the course of the next races (epochs) the
Earth will have become completely transformed, so that eventually
there will be no single atom on the earth that has not been worked
upon by man. In earlier times these atoms became more and more
solidified; now however they are becoming increasingly separated.
Radioactivity did not exist in earlier times and could not therefore
be discovered. It has only existed for a few thousand years, because
now the atoms split up more and more.

When the Fourth Round comes to an end the entire mineral kingdom will
have been worked upon by the hand of man. When it has been completely
worked through by man, then, in order that the fruits of this work can
be manifested, the Earth must pass over into an astral condition in
which forms can develop. The Earth then passes over into a Mental
Globe and then into the Higher Mental condition, the Arupic. It then
disappears altogether out of these conditions into a shorter Pralaya.
It then enters once more into a new Arupic condition, that of the
next, the Fifth Round; then into a Rupic condition and then into an
astral condition. After this it appears physically once more.
Everything which man worked into the mineral kingdom during the Fourth
Round reappears and grows up as the plant kingdom; for instance [the]
Cologne cathedral will appear as a plant in the next Round.

Between the last Arupic condition of the Fourth Round and the first
Arupic condition of the Fifth Round the earth goes through a Pralaya.
Then in the Fifth Round the previous mineral kingdom appears in all
its forms as the plant kingdom. In the Arupic condition of the Fifth
Round everything is contained that man has worked over in the mineral
Round. At first this reappears in the Arupic condition in the pure
Akasha. This condition is in fact called Akasha. In the beginning of
each new Round everything is to be found in the Akasha; later there
are only imprints. Thus in these imprints we have the whole Earth with
all its beings. In the transition from the Third to the Fourth Round,
all the beings which came into existence in the Third Round also
reappear.

With further development out of the Akasha everything has to assume a
denser form. This takes place in the Rupa condition of the earth. This
more material form is called in occultism, for example in certain
passages from H.P. Blavatsky, the ether. In this Ether-Earth
everything is contained. All beings were contained in thought, but
nevertheless in the background the Akasha exists as a foundation. The
ether densifies further to the Astral Light. In this Astral Light
radiates the third Globe (condition of form), the Astral-Earth; it
radiates in the purest Astral Light, and this Astral Light is in fact
entirely composed of the same substance in which later man's auric egg
shines out. This is especially the case with quite young children who
are only a few months old. After this the Earth passes over into its
present physical condition. Then, as the actual Earth, it becomes ever
more and more physical. In the same degree however in which it becomes
ever more physical, it separates off from itself the individual auric
eggs for mankind. These differentiate themselves as though, in a
vessel filled with water, one part of the water freezes to ice while
the other part rises up in pearl-like water drops. Thus on the one
side the physical earth separates off and on the other side the auric
eggs become, as it were, pearl-like drops for human evolution.

At first the auric egg seems to be undifferentiated. Actually however
it is not undifferentiated. It may be compared with the following: If
we have a solution of cooking salt it appears as a uniform grayish
mass; if we let it stand the beautiful cubic crystals of salt are
precipitated. In the auric egg those forces were inherent which
produced the etheric body, the Linga Sharira. Out of what became solid
earth there also emerged later what had already gone through a
development on the Old Moon. This contained as predisposition what
eventually became the lower kingdoms as far as the first vertebrates,
up to the snake. The vertebrate animals which followed were not there
on the Old Moon; they were first added on the Earth. Thus the
invertebrate animals emerged from the Earth when it densified to a
physical condition, as did also the plants and mineral kingdom.

At the time when all these separated forms had emerged, mankind had
entered into the Lemurian Age. The ever densifying human being
developed from the first, the Polarian race, to the race of the
Hyperboreans. This was followed by the Lemurian Age; it was then that
the development of the vertebrate animals entered its first stage, and
it is from that time that they have continued to evolve.

This is called a spiral (Wirbel). Until the Earth stage, the fourth
condition of form, the Earth became ever denser. At the price of this
increasing densification, the Astral Light became individualised after
the solid had thrust itself out. The Auric Eggs of human beings are
the individualised Astral Light. One can therefore read in the Astral
Light, not the deeds, but the emotions bound up with them; these one
can read in the Astral Light. For example, Caesar conceived the idea
of crossing the Rubicon and this roused in him certain feelings and
desires. What took place at that time corresponds to a combination of
astral impulses. The physical deeds on the physical plane have
vanished for all eternity. Caesar's advance can no longer be seen in
the Astral Light, but the impulse which drove him to it has remained
there. The karmic (astral) correlations with what takes place on the
physical plane remain in the Astral Light. One must accustom oneself
to look away from all physical perceptions and only to see the karmic
impulses. One must hold fast to these and consciously transpose them
back into the physical. There is no purpose in looking for something
which might be seen, as though one were looking at a photograph.

The greatest impulses of world history can however no longer be read
in the Astral Light, for the impulses of the great initiates were
passionless. Whoever therefore reads only in the Astral Light, for him
the whole work of the initiates is absent: for example the content of the
book The Great Initiates by Edouard Schuré could not have
been found in the Astral Light. Such impressions are only inscribed in the
Ether. What one can read in the Astral Light in connection with what
the initiates have done is based on an illusion, because one can only
read the results of the lives of the great initiates in the impulses
of their pupils. Pupils and even entire peoples have experienced
strong and passionate emotions in regard to the actions of the great
initiates and these have remained in the Astral Light. But it is so
difficult to study the deepest motives of the great initiates because
they are only present in the ether.

Cosmic events  metamorphoses such as those of Atlantis 
remain at a still higher level, no longer in the Ether, but in the
actual Akasha. That is the Akashic Chronicle. This latter is
nevertheless connected in a certain way with the most earthly concerns
of mankind. For the human being is connected with the great happenings
of the Cosmos. Every single person is to be found sketched, as it
were, in the Akashic Chronicle. What is present there continues
further and works its way into the Ether and the Astral Light. The
individual human being becomes ever more clearly discernible the more
one seeks for him in the lower spheres. And one must study all these
spheres in order to understand the real mechanism of Karma.